MiddleEarthRangers.org has graciously provided this space for the Middle Earth Reenactment Society for purposes of archiving/presenting their newsletter, and to keep our community informed on Society-specific happenings.

The members of the Middle-earth Reenactment Society are pleased to announce the release of the latest installment of Edge of the Wild: Hobbit edition! The newsletter can be downloaded HERE, and please be sure to share it widely and freely.We hope you enjoy our look into Shire life and we thank you for reading.

In my early childhood, before I got obsessed with all things dwarven (and realised I didn't actually like gardening or flowers ), I always wanted to be a hobbit, at least a quarter of my wardrobe is still hobbit clothing. Reading that, very almost, made me want to go back to it. Maybe one day I'll put together a proper hobbit persona.

You couldn't have introduced it with a more true quote:

J. R. R. Tolkien wrote:“The Shire had seldom seen so fair a summer, or so rich an autumn: the trees were laden with apples, honey was dripping in the combs, and the corn was tall and full.”

This has been the hottest summer I've ever known, almost all the crops have already been harvested, some of the local farmers are saying that its been the best year ever and despite two hours spent picking apples yesterday, when I look out the window the tree's still glistening with red.

Gimli: It's true you don't see many Dwarf-women. And in fact, they are so alike in voice and appearance, that they are often mistaken for Dwarf-men. Aragorn: It's the beards.

In Europe, corn meant a cereal crop: barley (as in John Barleycorn), oats, etc. But I tend to think that the Professor actually meant what we call corn, i.e.--maize.

There were several "New World" crops mentioned with respect to Hobbits. The most obvious is tobacco. Also corn, tomatoes and potatoes. I suspect that they were brought to ME from Numenor. However, I don't recall any specific citations to that effect.

Treebeard said that the Entwives taught the cultivation of corn to men, but did not address how the crop actually came to European-modelled ME.

Is anybody aware of citations from the later texts edited by Christopher Tolkien?

With regards to the recipe for seed cakes might I suggest substituting a 1/4 cup of honey for the 1/2 cup of sugar. While we know honey was readily accessible in ME sugar probably wouldn't be that accessible and morbidly expensive to import if even available unless they use maple sugar or beet sugar. Both have relatively low yield and need a good deal more refinement then cane making them a luxury item where bee keeping would be going on in every community.

Peter Remling wrote:With regards to the recipe for seed cakes might I suggest substituting a 1/4 cup of honey for the 1/2 cup of sugar. While we know honey was readily accessible in ME sugar probably wouldn't be that accessible and morbidly expensive to import if even available unless they use maple sugar or beet sugar. Both have relatively low yield and need a good deal more refinement then cane making them a luxury item where bee keeping would be going on in every community.

Yep, that was noted in a editor's note. I don't have a lot of experience with baking with honey, so I'm not sure what that will do to the texture of the cakes - creaming the sugar into the butter affects the structure. I think in working on the recipe I was paying too much attention to what the Professor was probably imagining (the seed cakes popular in his childhood), and the sugar thing slipped my mind, which is not acceptable for a publication focused on material authenticity. My bad!